McLaren ‘Not Overly Concerned’ Over Issues – Eric Boullier

McLaren F1 Team‘s Racing Director Eric Boullier says the team are not concerned by the issues that affected their track time on the opening day of the second pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Stoffel Vandoorne was in the MCL33 on Tuesday but only completed thirty-eight laps in today’s test, after the team suffered three separate mechanical related issues.

Issues relating to the battery and hydraulics caused the Woking based team to lose valuable time as they tried to solve the issues, but despite the breakdowns, Boullier says the team is not too concerned by the problems and that these troubles are expected to come during testing.

“Today wasn’t the day we had hoped for on track, but, despite this, we aren’t overly concerned about the issues that we’ve faced today.” said Boullier.

“It’s obviously not the productive day we had planned, but the problems – a battery issue and a hydraulic leak – are the types of niggles that we almost hope and expect to face during testing, in order to prepare us properly for the season ahead.”

Even though the nature of parts failing is part of testing, Boullier says it not ideal and he would prefer to see the car on track, but solving issues like this allows the team to learn how to handle situations like these should they arise again during the season.

“We are here to test, and today is what sometimes happens in testing. It’s not ideal, and we would have liked more track time, but we’re working on it, we’re learning from it, and we’ll return to the track tomorrow armed with more information.”